After W.S. Merwin

There was an age when you played records
made from shellac, and later there was another
of vinyl, but these days I play topo maps
cut into twelve-inch discs, glued together
to form two sides. I’ve been playing
one map of an old orchard over and over,
listening to the music of blossoms
and the sound of the eastern ridge
where the orchard ended. When I flip
the map I can hear the crinkle of frost
crystallizing below that ridge, the sound
of the river beyond the orchard.
On the steep slope above the river
is a thicket of grape vines,
and when the map spins fast enough
I can hear the tags on the collar of a beagle
jingle. She’s flushed a rabbit and soon
she’ll appear, her ears bleeding from briars.
I am close to being there. I am stretched
out on the floor with my eyes closed
just like a teenager, but the album ends
too soon, as the best records do.
When this one wears out, as it will,
I’ll cut a thin cross section from the stump
of an old apple tree, and I will play the rings
through cambium, sapwood, and heartwood
until the needle finds the pith.